'Superbly entertaining.' - Financial Times 'Jaw-dropping.' - Sunday Times 'Fascinating.' - Guardian 'Gripping.' - The Times 'Terrific . . . A page-turning history of imperial hubris and nemesis, deceit anddelusion, love and betrayal on a grand scale.' - Sunday Times In 1864, a young Austrian archduke by the name of Maximilian crossedthe Atlantic to assume a faraway throne. He had been lured into thevoyage by a duplicitous Napoleon III. Keen to spread his own interests abroad, the French emperor had promised Maximilian a hero's welcome.Instead, he walked into a bloody guerrilla war. With a head full of impracticalideals - and a penchant for pomp and butterflies - the new 'emperor' was singularly ill-equipped for what lay in store. This is the vivid history of this barely known, barely believable episode- a bloody tragedy of operatic proportions, the effects of which would befelt into the twentieth century and beyond.